Helping Others Perceive Equality (HOPE) is holding its annual Drag Show in the Reeve Memorial Union Ballroom Friday, April 11, from 8:30 p.m. to 12 a.m. 

Hosted by Reeve Union Board’s Titan Nights, the drag show features a variety of drag queens performing popular songs in larger-than-life hair, makeup and outfits.

While the drag show is the main event, they will also have other fun activities such as bingo, an egg hunt, building a bird feeder, rock painting and more. 

They will also be serving cotton candy, popcorn and late-night food.

Morgan Weber, has attended HOPE’s drag shows in the past.

“It was such a fun and welcoming environment,” Weber said. “The drag queens really go all out with their outfit[s].”

Drag queens aren’t the only ones performing, however. 

“A lot of [the drag queens] were very engaged with the audience,” Weber said. “They would walk out into the aisles and pick on random people and sing with them and stuff.”

The drag show doesn’t just entertain, but also inspires participants with the show’s diversity and the drag queens’ self-expression. 

“Seeing the diversity [in the show] as well as the confidence they all had was very inspiring,” Ava Nygaard, a student who attended her first drag show at UWO, said. “[It] made me feel like it was a very welcoming environment for those individuals to be able to express themselves overall.”

Weber also found the self-expression to be equally inspiring and entertaining.

“I think my favorite thing about the drag show is how everyone gets to express themselves on stage,” she said. “They get to do something they really enjoy in front of an engaged audience.”